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Animals Driving History Home Life Music Radio

Saturday Night Retro

1998 – What a crazy year it was (for me anyway). It was a party year. It’s the year that I went from 30 to 31-years-old. I was living in my current home. I was working at the place that I still work at today. I had my young and healthy feline buddy Boots running energetically all throughout my home. When I wasn’t at home or at work I was probably driving around in my dark green 1997 Saturn SL1 that looked just like this:

1997 Saturn SL1
1997 Saturn SL1

I was a loyal Y-100 listener in 1998, and some of the hottest pop and rock bands on the radio back then included ‘N Sync, Fastball, Matchbox Twenty, The Goo Goo Dolls, and Aerosmith.

Here’s a track that was particularly big all around the world (aside from here in the U.S.). It’s a modern 1998 Eurodance update to a 1974 U.S. Disco smash. You probably know the original version, and some of you can even perform the dance moves to it as well. It’s “Kung Fu Fighting”, and Carl Douglas performed it originally while the British dance crew Bus Stop modernized it in 1998. It went a little something like this:

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History Home Life

Bedtime Stories

TONIGHT I stumbled across an inch-and-a-half stack of colour pictures that were taken of me – as well as pictures that I apparently took myself – back during the wild and crazy late-1994 to mid-1995 time-frame. I hadn’t seen those pictures since way back then. They represent a lot of great memories for me, but some of the pictures are from the aftermath of when my former house (in Naranja near the air base) was broken into and ransacked by vandals. They of course brought back bad memories of that time, but life is all about the good and the bad. You can’t have it all good all of the time. Life has its bright and sunny days – as well as its dark and stormy nights.

I may share some of those retro pictures with you here on this blog in the future. I won’t be sharing any of the pictures of me partying / drinking at a bar. Those pictures represent a previous version of me that has since died, for I’ve been rescued, saved, and reborn by my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. AMEN !

One of the pictures brought some tears to my eyes. It’s a picture of me and a noticeably young and healthy Boots (my former cat) sitting together on my living room couch watching television at my former house just a few weeks after I adopted the cool cat.

The following picture that I will share with you right now is that of me from nearly 30 years ago. I actually cropped myself out of a formal family portrait (to protect the innocent). I believe this picture was taken in 1980. I look 13-years-old. Actually I look like a dork. One thing is certain though. I’m jealous of all of that gorgeous hair !  Where have you gone ?

REMEMBER THIS !

Me In 1980
Me In 1980
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History Home Life Music Television Travel

Saturday Night Retro

Last Saturday night on the ‘Retro’ I presented to you for your review the 1996 smash “1979” from The Smashing Pumpkins. This week I take you back to 1979. It was exactly 30 years ago, and it closed out a crazy decade of decadence.

I entered 1979 as an 11½-year-old 6TH grader at Magnolia Elementary School in Lanham Maryland – located right in the middle of my neighbourhood at the time. Later in the year in September I moved on to Robert H. Goddard Junior High School several miles away. I was also a Boy Scout at the time. We had meetings weekly, and we went on hiking and camping trips monthly – mostly up to the mountains of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. They were ancient history editions of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ !  😀

During my spare time (after school and on weekends) I enjoyed riding my bike up and down Red Wing Lane, Wood Thrush Drive, Nightingale Drive, Kingfisher Lane, Wren Lane, and Brae Brooke Drive. I can see recent images of all of those roads (and my old house of over 5½-years) right now online via the use of Google Street View. My old neighbourhood has aged quite a bit over the past 30 years – and so have I. Back then it was brand new (built from around 1973 to 1975). That’s how I remember it. It doesn’t look like that anymore.

On the hit music radio stations nationwide disco music was still alive and kicking – at least during the first-half of 1979. It started dying out during that Summer. Here’s one of the last big disco hits of the era. It managed to sneak up the Billboard HOT 100 to # 11 in September of 1979. It’s Bonnie Pointer making a LIVE July 1979 appearance on ‘The Midnight Special’ on a Friday night on NBC-TV. Here’s her disco smash “Heaven Must Have Sent You”. Check out the way that we used to control the dance floor back then !

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Food Holidays Home Life Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

If it’s Tuesday night – then you just know what I’m all about:

1.  After one of the coldest Novembers in South Florida in a century we are now experiencing extended summer-like weather conditions in December. Expect mid-afternoon temperatures in the upper-70s to the lower-80s for the unforeseeable future. Season’s Greetings !

2.  Some people do their best work while sitting down, but as far as I’m concerned public toilets are for standing up – not for sitting down. There’s only one place where I sit down – at home !

3.  I’ve already received about a half a dozen Christmas cards in the mail from friends across the free nation. Have no fear, for my Christmas cards will be going out via first class mail (hopefully) this weekend.

4.  I got a haircut today at Woody’s of Homestead. I’ve been going there since I was a kid in my late-20s. I recommend that joint to anyone who’s looking for a no-nonsense barber shop. Simple does it !

5.  Travis introduced me to La Cruzada Taqueria at Lunch today. It’s a cool little Mexican restaurant tucked away in a corner of Olde Historic Downtown Homestead. I delighted in a MASSIVE chimichanga with chicken inside and rice and beans. It was outrageously tasty. It was a MASSIVE Lunch, and in just a few more hours I’ll be partaking in a MASSIVE Dinner at the house of Dr. J.T. & A.J. as we do Food, Fun, and Fellowship with my closest friends in Life. I dig that groove !

Thanks for sharing a small piece of your Tuesday night with me here on my blog.